"I'm not going to--I don't want to do any crimes but it occurs to me that I don't know what the laws are here, is there anything I'm likely to run afoul of other than 'don't injure or deceive people or mess with their property'?" Like, for example, being in the country without a passport or any form of identification or permission to be here. He's probably going to catch some shit trying to get back into the US, but once he's somewhere on his phone's network he'll call Coulson and Coulson will do mysterious government person things until Bruce is back where they want him. It's the closest thing he's seen yet to an upside of being considered a military asset.

"If you generalize 'injure' to all the ways of harming people that aren't literally picking fights, I think that should mostly get you through? You'll be with us. ...Also, I mean, don't - randomly leave your clothes on a fence and wander around naked singing, or stand in the subway doors so they can't close, or knock over all the cereal in the grocery store - but it's not illegal to delay trains or whatever, it's just rude." 

He seems so freaked out! Veth tries to smile reassuringly at him. "Hey, you'll be fine. You're with us." 

"If I make this face at you it means quit it, whatever 'it' is." 

Oh dear, facial expressions. He misses his tiny cabin in Brazil. "I'm going to try to avoid inconveniencing people in full generality. More than I already have, I mean. Also, I don't think you ever actually said what country this is?" 

"Country is Nahara. City is Kast." 

"Northwest on the Continent. Oh, which over in Siarra they call Lohnor." 

". . . I think I am worse at geography than I thought I was." Or whatever the Tesseract did isn't handling proper nouns intuitively and those are all unfamiliar names for very familiar locations and he's going to look like he's never heard of Asia.

"Let's just get you topside where we can pull out a map." And he leads the way. 

They walk for a while through a dark rough-cut tunnel lit only by flickering candles, and then emerge through a curtain of - is that vines - no they're fake vines, carefully and lovingly made of silk and embroidery floss and some other materials - 

- into a much larger corridor where every single surface of everything is coloured in gloriously colourful graffiti. A different group of teenagers, these ones wearing masks that hide their faces, are working on a new section. They're hanging off ceiling harnesses to do it, laughing and shoving each other so they sort of bounce around against the walls. 

"How are you on stairs? We're thirty levels down but it's faster than waiting for the lifts." 

"Aww, you're not even going to suggest he climb the fireman's pole?" 

"I cannot climb a fireman's pole but I can climb a lot of stairs. But I might be disappointingly slow at it." Also, wow, thirty flights down is impressively deep. This whole place is super interesting and he would have a good time exploring it if he was here as a tourist with a suitcase and a plan.

They follow the corridor and end up coming out on the spiral staircase, looking back out into the huge mineshaft thing! The way the stairs are set up, a huge gently looping circle rather than switchbacks with about one rotation per level - though the levels continue to be weirdly offset and sometimes sloping, rather than lining up the way storeys in a building would - makes it feel a lot less like a slog.

And there's a view! Some sort of extremely weird improv or performance-art piece or something is being staged in a screened in, triple-height level a little above them, with various people wearing mostly body paint and tights, assembling their bodies with the help of some hanging silks and other accessories to make - a tree with its branches waving in the wind, which then gradually and creepily mutates into some sort of shark... 

Then they're around the bend from it, and can see a - classy bar patio, overlooking the depths? The clientele there are older, forties to sixties. Most of them are sitting, or lounging on a giant beanbag-bed-thing in the middle. One woman who looks about fifty is hanging from a chandelier for some reason. 

Up and up and up. 

Up they hike. Bruce has the physique of someone for whom physical activity has mostly consisted of miserable grade school gym classes, and his legs are going to be in open rebellion the day after tomorrow, but he keeps moving on a combination of nervous energy and not wanting to embarrass himself any further. The performance art is a nice distraction.

All of them are a lot younger, of course, and Layne and Ronda in particular are clearly in very good shape; Ronda actually skips up and down the stairs ahead of the group a couple of times (when Nuts slips out, they're hyperactive.) 

Nolita does start flagging when they're still ten levels down. 

"Piggyback?"

Awww. 

And then they reach the surface. 

There's a weird frosted-glass full height turnstile sort of thing. 

"I'm guessing you don't have any weapons," Layne informs Bruce, "but if you do, lockers are here." He gestures. 

"I got a spare lock if you need to stash drugs." 

"Why would he have drugs on him? He was at work when he got yoinked here." 

"Banned items topside are - weapons aside from a couple of approved defence-only ones if you have a permit. Any non-prescribed mind-affecting drugs. Umm, am I forgetting anything obvious? Lots of people change clothes here but you're fine." 

"What's the rule on pocketknives?" He pulls a multitool out of his pocket; it has a knife and a couple screwdrivers and pliers and a file and a tiny saw. If he doesn't lose it here he'll have to mail it to himself before he flies home.